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WASHINGTON — Long before he ran for Congress, Marty O’Donnell was an award-winning composer for the “Halo” video game franchise.
His work drew legions of fans to an online forum, which the Nevada Republican has tried to turn into a galvanizing force as he tries to unseat a Democrat in the Las Vegas district that could help decide control of the House. O’Donnell has been the group’s de facto leader, referring to himself as the “good dictator” as he taps his members for campaign funds and uses their enthusiasm in his advocacy. The campaign held a two-day event for forum members this month at a casino that included a video game competition, panel discussions and speeches.
There is another side, however, to what is known as “The Marty Army”.
An Associated Press review of thousands of posts made on the forum between 2022 and 2026 found racial slurs, denigration of Nazi Germany and defense of white nationalist conspiracy theories.
“It wasn’t one or two things. The popular sentiment was, ‘Yes, addiction should be legal,'” said Deacon Dameron, a former group member who said O’Donnell stopped him from calling another user a “dork.”
Many opinions expressed in the forum, which is controlled by O’Donnell and the hand-picked moderators, are against some of the values expressed by the candidate and the campaign. For example, O’Donnell has staunchly defended Israel and criticized bigotry.
In a statement, campaign spokesman Keith Schipper said O’Donnell has “zero tolerance for hate” in his forum. Since becoming aware of the issue this spring, the campaign has “dedicated a staff member to monitor” and “remove people who spew racist and antisemitic vitriol,” Schipper said. “Unfortunately, some jobs have been lost over the years.”
Schipper said that nearly 200 users were banned “because of hateful rhetoric, including many of the people identified by the Associated Press. Marty’s support for Israel is unclear and, as shown in numerous interviews and online posts, he will not tolerate the rise of antisemitism in our country.”
O’Donnell, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, is running against four-term Rep. Susie Lee in the Nov. 3 election as Republicans look to hang on to their razor-thin majority. In a sign of how Republicans are testing their chances in a tough environment, they pulled back spending this week in a handful of congressional races, including O’Donnell’s.
Most of the comments in the chat group are related to video games and gaming strategies. A section is reserved for questions about O’Donnell’s work on the “Halo” games. After O’Donnell announced his first run for Congress in 2024, when he finished fourth in the party’s primary, some conversations centered on news and policy.
Many of the offensive and controversial comments came in free-wheeling responses to unusual comments about current events, politics or games.
In May 2022, for example, a member wrote, “THIS IS WITH MARTY.” Others took to the post by using a letter emoji to – incorrectly – refer to black people as a racial slur. Sooner a cry came in, using emoji letters to insert another anti-Black slur. It seems that users were restricted from spelling such words correctly because, by design, the platform prevents an emoji from being used more than once in a reply to a post.
In a January 2025 free speech discussion, a forum member expressed a desire to use a racial slur but stopped because “that’s not the attention Marty wants.” Dameron, a former member of the group, and another former user said posters relied on coded language because more overtly racist comments were likely to draw attention from moderators. The other user spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“The Marty Army” started as an inside joke.
The developers of “Halo” created the chat room in 2001 on a website dedicated to the game. The name they chose was to include a club for rabid fans of the glam rock band Kiss. O’Donnell joined the discussion group and took control of the forum.
ee moved to Discord, a popular online platform. His candidate’s website has a link to the Discord chat group, which he has also published from his account on social media platform X.
If you want to be part of my run for Congress, you can be part of Marty’s Army,” O’Donnell said in an X post after launching his 2024 campaign.
O’Donnell has repeatedly said that users who oppose racist or antisemitic views will be banned. He also threatened, at times, to delete posts.
The AP found that some users who expressed Nazi sympathies have been removed from the forum, but many of their posts remain.
A user suggested in March 2024 that the Nazis did “good things” that “totally outweigh the horrible things they did.”
Another asked that month, “Was Hitler a bad man?
“Besides the Holocaust,” the user said, “did he even do anything wrong?”
In February, a third member posted, “Heil Hitler.”
Current and historical fascist figures have also received approval.
O’Donnell wrote on the forum that he rejects fascism. But he also shared a photo of himself wearing what he said was a mask of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator and close friend of Hitler, which he wore to a Halloween party.
O’Donnell’s campaign denied that he dressed like Mussolini.
“This mask was part of a scary Halloween costume almost two decades ago. It wasn’t called a Mussolini mask when he bought it and he wasn’t dressed up as Mussolini for the holiday,” Schipper said. “He bought it because it was the ugliest and scariest mask on the shelf. He jokingly referred to it as ‘the Mussolini mask’ years later because he realized it looked vaguely like Mussolini.”
O’Donnell said this year that he was not aware of the resurgence of anti-semitism. He told a conservative news organization in September that he believed “antisemitism is something we don’t have to worry about anymore.”
“I guess it just went under the surface and it’s been growing there,” he said in an interview with the Washington Reporter, which was founded by Republican political strategists.
O’Donnell made the comment after the Jewish news site Insider reported that he hosted Charles Cornish-Dale, a far-right influencer with Nazi sympathies, on his own podcast, “The Marty O’Donnell Show.”
In the spring, O’Donnell warned users on the forum that if there was “even a hint of antisemitism” the offending member would be “immediately banned.”
Users responded to his post with an emoji of an exaggerated nose and “GOY,” a Yiddish term that is sometimes offensive to non-Jews.
Some anti-hate groups see the use of the nose emoji as antisemitic, while goy is a term used by those who express antisemitic views.
Wendy Melillo, an associate professor of journalism at American University who studies extremist chat rooms, said the comments were clearly “coded antisemitic hate speech.”
Melillo said other posts she reviewed were clearer.
“There is no code,” she said, “about ‘Heil Hitler.'”
Some members of “The Marty Army” are aware that the forum may be biased.
In 2024, a user wrote that O’Donnell’s political career could be in trouble “if someone does a vulnerability scan and finds this server.”
